Past Sessions: September 2005

Semester One: Breaking out of the Ashkenazi Box

To reflect and reinforce JFREJ’s work with diverse Jewish communities, and to counter the Ashkenazi-centric nature of much of our work together so far, we will study histories of resistance in Sephardi and Mizrachi communities and from J. communities around the world, such as the Mizrachi-led Black Panther organization in Israel.

Semester Two: Memoir and Memory – Narratives of Struggle

As we broadened our understanding of what constitutes a “text,” we concluded that the personal stories of members of the Study Group are important catalysts for learning and discussion. In this semester, we will hear members’ stories about what connects them to the struggles of previous generations, as well as reading first person narratives about family, Jewishness, legacies from earlier generations, and political action.

Semester Three: Jewishness and Justice – Secular and Religious Traditions

Since the organization’s inception, JFREJ has always been home to both secular and religious Jews. Both groups believe that our Jewish identities require us to work for justice but they often disagree about which aspects of our traditions motivate us to do so. We will study and discuss secular and religious sources about the Jewish imperative for justice and explore how Jewish conceptions of justice have differed across generations.

History of JFREJ Intergenerational Study Group:

Started in 2004, the Intergenerational Study Group provides a valuable opportunity for JFREJ members, ranging in age from their early twenties to their late sixties, to study histories of resistance and to apply these lessons to the current political context. The goal of the Study Group is to address the twin problems that plague progressive movements. First, the Left lacks engaging, user-friendly materials with which to explore social movements from previous decades and in other parts of the world. Second, and as a result of the first problem, progressive activists are constantly re-inventing the wheel and unnecessarily repeating their predecessors’ mistakes.

JFREJ has always been a multigenerational organization and our membership is rich with personal experiences of United States social movements spanning the past five decades. We launched the Study Group in order to harness and distill these lessons learned, and in order to create structured opportunities for members to read and discuss academic texts, oral histories, memoirs, poetry, religious texts, and other materials that shed light on past and present social justice struggles. Previous sessions, all of which were led by a pair of intergenerational co-facilitators who incorporated popular education approaches, have included the following topics:

• We studied a critical moment for race relations, education, and community control in New York City by reading about and discussing the Ocean Hill-Brownsville controversy of the late 1960s. Older members of the Study Group shared stories of their memories of this divisive struggle and younger members who work as teachers described how the issues raised by the controversy continue to affect schools.
• We compared the anarchist movement of the 1930s to today’s anti-globalization movement to explore the evolution of anarchist ideology, its connection to Jewish identity, and the lessons that can be applied to today’s work.
• We delved into our own family histories to explore the interplay between Eastern European Jewish secular radicalism and Jewish immigrant culture in the United States.
• Using the Biblical story of Ruth and rabbinic commentaries on the text, we explored how this story sheds light on questions of “otherness” and immigration in contemporary American society.
• We studied Muriel Rukeyser’s poem “To be a Jew in the twentieth century” and discussed what it teaches us about the connection to choosing strong Jewish identities today, as well as choosing to be part of social justice movements.

“Jewish history is rich with rebels and visionaries,
people who believed passionately that justice is central to Jewishness. Through the study group, all of us – young, middle-aged, and older – examine these histories and apply them to our work today.” 

– Melanie Kaye/Kantowitz, age 59

“In U.S. culture generally, as well as in Jewish communities, histories of resistance get written out, which means that we have to re-invent everything all over again. Thanks to the intergenerational Study Group, we get to make new mistakes, rather than repeating the same ones that were made ten, thirty, or fifty years ago. The Study Group counteracts this loss of history.”

– Daniel Lang/Levitsky, age 28

“I went through the Seventies when we were pretty scornful of the generation before us, so it’s absolutely delicious to have young people who want to talk. What we can learn from working together on this study group has a lot of implications. How does knowledge get passed down through generations and back up? How do you not become rigid, and [how do you] learn from a younger generation that faces very different conditions?”

– Sherry Gorelick, age 66

To sign up for Upcoming Sessions, contact:

Danielle Feris 212.647.8966 x11

Jews For Racial & Economic Justice - 135 W. 29th St. #600 New York, NY 10001
Tel: 212-647-8966 Fax: 212-647-7124 email